In February in Japan takes place the Setsubun festival. People go to temples to throw soy beans to people dressed as demons, to chase away the bad things for the forthcoming year.
On Sunday, on the advise of the school, I went to this temple for an hour orientation to take part in this festival. It was presented to me as: "just go there, you get costumes, throw rice and get paid". Of course I went there but only to discover that we'll have to dress up (some of us as demons i.e people throw stuff at you), be paraded from 8am to 5pm from mall to mall, on weekdays (i.e. miss school)...So imagine my face when I discovered all that...I had to politely decline but felt really bad because got paid for the hour long orientation, got sweets and a tour of the temple. Baaaaaaaaad. But no way I'm going to go around town for 9hrs dressed in very little in these temperatures (currently between -1C and 2C). Plus I would miss classes, which are the priority at the moment plus they cost me more than the pay I would get.
To counterbalance the bad vibe, I bought with the money a book to help me read in Japanese. That way I felt the buddhists' money went to a good cause...
**By the way, since I arrived in Japan, each time I feel bad, I buy a book. I look in secondhand bookshops for cheap mangas (currently reading one about young Jesus and Boudha hanging out in Tokyo) and one of the main bookshop, Junkudo, for study books....It's so bad, I started re-selling or offering some books and planning on sending a parcel to the UK in February. Yerk!!! **
Party
Tonight students from the school got an invitation to join a party given by a local politician.
The amazing things is that the foreigners were paid thank-you money (2000yens), we got free food and drinks and we just had to walk around making conversation. Because people are scared not to be understood or be able to understand, foreigners mainly stick between themselves speaking in English but I still managed to have a small talk with the main politician (apparently it looked like there was a 'yakuza' but, if it's true, I missed him, dammed!).
So we got an introductory speech...
...then another one (I managed to not take a photo when the main guy talked! BAKA!)
We even had some Chinese music (note the jeans under the costume of the 2nd one. It's cold here).
The food banquet was amazing...
It was great fun, I met and got to know better lovely people. And I was being paid to enjoy myself?!?! I love Japan....am I repeating myself?
It seems there are lots of similar parties, to which foreigners are invited. Why? I was told because it's good for the image to have foreigners around, show how international you are and it can also create business link between Japanese business men and foreigners...Not sure how I feel about it... On one hand, I felt honoured to be invited to such event, be treated like a queen but... why are they paying us? Most of the foreigners were students so how can we create business with people? Are we paid because we are just playing a role, the gaijin role? It's like for the Setsubun festival, are only the gaijin employed to go around town? Is it an honour to be offered such job or is our gaijin image being shown off? I really don't know...nothing is black or white so I guess the truth stands in between: we get the experience, we offer our gaijiness.
What is sure is that nobody is forcing me to go to these events so maybe I'm the cynical one here, putting my pseudo-morals on the side for money and fun...
Maybe I should go out and get a book....^_^
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